Guest essay by Eric Worrall
IPCC Lead Author Professor Myles Allen, who just last year in 2014 stated that alarmism is unhelpful, appears to have changed his mind – his new position is that “normal weather is now a thing of the past”.
According to The Telegraph;
Global warming: normal weather is a ‘thing of the past’, claims scientist
Oxford University’s Professor Myles Allen said we have ‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely.
Normal weather is now a “thing of the past”, a leading climate change scientist has said, after storms and heavy rain caused devastating floods in parts of Britain.
December was record-breaking in both warmth and rainfall, according to the Met Office, with temperatures closer to those expected in April and May. For some parts of the UK, it was also the wettest December since records began in 1910.
Professor Myles Allen, leader of the Climate Research Programme at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute said: “Normal weather is actually a bit of a thing of the past.
“Here in Oxford we maintain the world’s longest daily weather record, we just beat the previous record by a whopping two and a half degrees and that record was set back in 1852.
This rather alarmist claim is a sharp contrast from Professor Allen’s more conciliatory statements in 2014.
NGOs have at times been alarmist over climate change … but the IPCC has been very clear and measured throughout. I think alarmism on any issue is unhelpful.
Read more: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/04/ipcc-lead-author-prof-myles-allen-alarmism-is-unhelpful/
Why has Professor Myles suddenly decided to be “unhelpful”? As noted previously by WUWT, the severity of the floods in Britain has likely been exacerbated by poor river management. If the British Government had maintained a sensible level of river dredging, the flood waters would have drained more efficiently, and the rivers might not have burst their banks.
Soooooo…
Using money to fight an imaginary foe called AGW and being ignorant of proper maintenance of rivers and canals which drain rain water is now the fault of AGW?
Who hired fools to run the country?
Other fools?
Unfortunately, if there are only fools on the menu, fools is what you get.
… fools are …
Dredging has been used for over 2000 years to good effect, why change the rules making it all but impossible?
Read the post on it and the involvement of EU policies.
Ric Werme
Holland, and probably Belgium too work under the same EU regulations and mange to dredge rivers and put in water management systems. In France nothing much has changed in water management either. It is the Green takeover of life in the UK causing the problems, EU regulation is used as an excuse to follow ecomentalist policies.
Oh? Yesterday it rained. Today it didn’t. Weird.
No one, we voted them in!. The fact is that almost all of our Ministers, MP’s and Local Councillors in the UK, in all the major Parties, are of the same outlook and similarly lacking in any scientific or technological experience or qualifications, makes matters even worse. Owen Patterson was sacked as the DEFRA Minister of State with responsibility for the UK’s Environment Agency because of his views on Climate Change and the European Union, but he managed to squeeze through a significant programme of dredging in Somerset following the tremendous Somerset Flats flooding in 2014. Photographs during these works showed metres of sludge/silt build up including build up under local bridges. Surprise, surprise, this area of the UK didn’t flood this time, but there was no dredging elsewhere and there hasn’t been any dredging for years because the UK government’s “gold plated” interpretations of the signed for EU Water Management Framework which puts the safety and security of newts and fishes above that of UK citizens, their properties and their businesses. This lack of dredging has now led to very significantly reduced river flow capacities, and even just in Yorkshire this Christmas at least 3 major road bridges in 3 towns have been very badly damaged and have partially collapsed, cutting the towns in two and providing resulting very serious domestic and commercial problems for at least the next 6-9 months, if not even longer. They were damaged simply because the silting up raised the river bed levels, and thus the river surface levels, and increased the flows under the throttled river bridges, thus increasing the lateral flow impact loads on the bridges. The only people benefitting from all this flooding damage will be the lawyers suing the EA and other government and local authority agencies. I wish them well, we need accountability and restitution and some Voltaire Admiral Byng man/woman motivation: “il est une bonne idee, de temps en temps, de tuer un amiral, (sorry politician) pour encourager les autres!”
Since “normal” weather is based on the average conditions of the last 30 years, it is by defintion a ‘thing of the past’
oops, I’ll close the bold
Professor Allen should also point out that normal science is a thing of the past.
Children won’t know what normal weather is.
Normal weather will become a rare and exciting event.
Normal thinking might be even more rare and definitely frightening to authorities.
@Dawtgtomis
Chances of that happening are slim to none, and Slim left town.
The stanard deviation was burried with it.
Another misuse of the word “normal.” There is no such thing as normal weather. There is a normal human body temperature (98.6 F), from which deviation by more than a degree or two is a matter of concern. There is normal eyesight, termed 20/20. There are other norms, based on observation and experiment, which are recognized as a standard and from which deviations are easily measured.
The climate (long-term averages) and weather (what we experience on a given day) do not have a norm. Today is rainy here–not very heavy, more intermittent than not, but rain. It is not unusual, but it is surely not “normal,” a standard from which deviation is noted. We are expecting warm temperatures later today; nothing near a record, but warmer than average for January. Is such warmth abnormal? Who can say? No norms have ever been established, only averages.
As for average weather–it, too, is rare. The average temperature this time of year in central Virginia ranges from 28 to 47 degrees F. I have been keeping records here at the house for the past 2.5 years. During that time (over 900 days), 14 days actually had temps that averaged right at the long-term (30-year) average. Not one of those days actually had the average high and the average low temperatures (for example, if a mid-January day had averaged 37.5 degrees, it did not have a high of 47 and low of 28; it was something like 50 and 25 or 42 and 33, thus achieving the average but with different extremes).
“There is normal eyesight, termed 20/20.”
GB Shaw wrote that his doctor told him that he had normal (20/20) eyesight and that it was actually quite rare.
Here in Florida, and in many location in the southern tier of states, years with average rainfall are very abnormal. Most years are well below or well above the long term averages.
Average is not normal.
Normal weather for the Earth includes everything from 2 mile thick glaciers covering Northern Europe, Asia and the U.S. to a subtropical arctic. That’s all going away now? To be replaced by what, exactly?
According to this arricle, “normal” eyesight deteriorates from 20/14 around age 20 to 20/19 at age 75.
http://www.vision-training.com/en/eNewsletter/Singapore/Normal%20eyesight/What%20is%20normal%20eyesight.html
Of course, with the ubiquitous use of computers and eyestrain, , and children learning to read from books that don’t have extra large print,, average eyesight has been deteriorating
Whose brain did you get?? Abby…Abby someone
Abby Normal??? lol!
Actually that old saw on normal body temperature at 98.6F isn’t right. Normal body temperatures vary from person to person and they vary throughout the day.
http://antranik.org/regulation-of-body-temperature/
My own body temperature tends to be well below 98.6 – usually at least a degree lower, often two degrees lower as I spend a lot of time outside. As I sit her typing between football games, my temperature is 97.5. 96 is not unusual. After a hot bath after coming in out of the snow, my temperature can exceed 100. That is “normal” for me but maybe not for others.
Coming up with an average “People Temperature” is about the same as coming up with a Global Average Temperature. It says nothing about what is happening in individual regions of the earth. It gives you a general idea, but every person has a different “normal” range.
Same goes for eyesight. You can choose a “normal” standard but every person has different eyesight and in changes with time.
“Normals” give us a sense of the range we should look at but they don’t tell us what is normal. Global Average Temperature tells us nothing about equatorial or polar climate. But if we were comparing planets; then it might be of some use.
And that is the problem of Normals and Averages – if you don’t have a proper baseline for what you are looking at, or if conditions change (no dredging, UHI) then normals don’t apply.
But of course we are in the era of Post-Normal Science.
(If you aren’t familiar with this concept, don’t read the below on a full stomach.)
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/155319/
If you really want to wonder, read this one on Post Modern Science. We get to CHOOSE what is real. Neat, huh?
http://www.allaboutworldview.org/postmodern-science.htm
Oh PERFECT!! That link is PERFECT for my current research Wayne! Thank you!
Define: Normal in the context of past, present and future?
Regards
Climate Heretic
Normal. It’s such a term. I have reddish hair, fair skin and freckles.My husband has dark hair, olive skin and no freckles, our children are blond with olive skin like two of my sisters, no freckles, go figure.
Recessive genes MareeS 🙂 Exact same situation here between myself and my husband. My husband’s DNA is more dominant than mine in the skin color, eye color, and hair color departments. BUT they got other things where my DNA is more dominant than their father’s-hair thickness, teeth, and reasoning skills. 🙂
Their DNA suppression/dominance is normal.
The way we all act as a family with regards to “normal”….is definitely debatable. 🙂
So at one location on the planet, they break a 164 year old record. Did they claim an end to normal weather when the previous record was set in 1852? No. Breaking weather records IS normal. It happens every year somewhere. I guess when it happens in your back yard and in your lifetime it automatically means that something must be wrong with the climate.
It’s no longer about science…now it’s personal.
jckarke341: they might well have claimed an end to normal weather; how would we know? And they may well claim an end to normal weather again in 2179 (164 years’ hence). December 2015 was so exceptional that even with some global warming it could take that long to break the rcord again.
Rich.
If it is warmer in 164 years than now, I would say we are lucky.
Unlucky will be if it is not this warm again until the next interglacial.
Nice to see cherry picking going on – perhaps the warm weather has made them ripen early. The con is that rainfall records exist further back than 1910 and they show that December wasn’t a record. The 1910 record is the Met Office digitised data which conveniently is not mentioned in any articles. We have been here before with the Somerset floods where once again the climate crooks claimed it was record rainfall according to the UK records, but it wasn’t if you used the England & Wales records that went back further. Somerset is in England. The consistent lying and cherry picking can only lead you to believe that their case is weak otherwise why do it.
The CO2 levels in 1852 must have been really high.
Cheers.
Yes, and the record that was set in 1852 was just weather…
In Britain we have Scotland, Cumbria, the North East, the North West, the Midlands, the south East, the South West and Wales – that is 8 main regions. Then you have Spring, Summer, Autumn Winter and twelve months – that is 16 time periods. Then you have Hottest, Coldest, driest and wettest, that four types of weather. Then you have decade, fifty years and century and ever.
On this calculation you have 8 X 16 X 4 x 4 records to be broken; In Britain there are 2048 records up for grabs every year, each one by definition “extreme”.
This year we have had the wettest December in Cumbria but I have heard that the South East rainfal was slightly drier than usual.
Maybe someone needs to explain the definition of normal to the Professor.
‘Normal Weather is a “Thing of the Past” ‘
Is it now normalized? Paranormal?
Just askin’
I guess just like snow!
It’s post modern science so it is whatever you want it to be.
This weather station?
https://suddenoaklifeorg.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/global-warming-in-oxford/
Unusual weather is NORMAL! This something I learned whilst doing a two-year study of the local air stability over a planned industrial site back in the 70’s. It seems modern people get hung up in statistics, and judge everything in RECORDS. The most pathetic one was claimed by the next largest city of Bergen, here in Norway. They claimed there had now (just after Christmas, 2014) been over 700 days without the temperature over 24 hrs being lower than 0 degrees C ! Fancy that! But, then Bergen also has the joke about the toutist who asked a boy if it always rains in Bergen, “I don’t know”, he said “I’m only 10”.
700 days with lower than 0 degrees the whole day, for clarity. And I think the tourist was American.
Bergen (which is a beautifully situated City and Bryggen is very cosy) does not have ‘typical’ Norwegian weather being situated right on the coast bathed by the Gulf Stream, and horse shoed by mountains. It has a temperate oceanic climate with mean winter temperatures around 2.5degC, with no month having a mean below freezing. That said, I am extremely surprised that night time lows did not drop below freezing. The data must be corrupted by UHI and poor siting if that truly is the case.
I can remember visiting Bergen back in the 1980s, it was late June, the weather was glorious and about 33degC. I drove back to Oslo over Hardangervidda, wearing just a pair of shorts and trainers. The road runs through a snow covered plateau (i think at about 1200 metres, but that is just recollection) and there was a wall of snow at least 2 metres high, either side of the road (the road is closed for much of the winter). You could see a few chimneys emerging out of the snow, and occasionally a peak of a roof of wooden cottages that were buried about 3 to 4 metres deep in snow. I stood on the roof of my car to take some pictures since I wondered how anyone could use these cottages if at the end of June they were still buried deep in snow. I thought I would go for a walk and check it out a bit more. I jumped from the roof of my car onto the snow, and fell through. I was suddenly chest high in wet slushy snow, with only a pair of shorts. I won’t say that it is exhilarating; although Scandinavians do roll in the snow after a sauna. Each to their own.
I note that the forecasts for next weekend are suggesting a high of -6degC and a low of -11degC for Saturday, and a high of -8degC and a low of -12 degC for Sunday, so some coldish weather on its way next week.
Uhhhhhhhh…..par’n me but I THOUGHT “normal” meant “what happens most of the time”.
Has anyone ever seen Gavin Schmidt and Mike Mann in the same room together? Or Steig and Gleick? Just curious….
I recently saw them in the same cartoon together.
Does that count?
Only as a source of hilarity on Josh’s part. Not really evidence…no 🙂
They are cartoonish people, so I’ll accept it as evidence.
Given the number of data collection locations, the relatively short period of time over which we have records, and the semi-chaotic nature of climate, is it not logical that records will be broken on a regular basis?
Michael
“records will be broken on a regular basis”
So, every third Tuesday?
Or
“records will be broken on a random basis” or “records will be broken on a reasonably frequent basis”
Maybe help a bit?
Auto – in the UK and well aware of the Met. Office’s – ah – ‘interesting’ record on terminological inexactitudes . . .
I have a collection of old 78 rpm records. They are easily broken. Even the old 45’s and LP records can be broken. Does that count?
Wayne
Probably almost as much as our Met-Leaders’ records.
But – take care as some will be worth >$10.
A few, likely. . . .
Auto – but good luck
And just what is normal weather? There is no such thing as normal weather if one accepts that the climate system is too complex, chaotic and unpredictable.
But then again, all these alarmist scientists don’t believe the climate system is too complex, chaotic and unpredictable. In their empty heads, CO2 from human activity is the key driver of earth’s climate, and apparently it is causing dangerous global warming … and they should know because they rely on adjusted thermometer temperature measurements that create real “man-made fabricated global warming” while satellite temperature data shows otherwise. Besides, everyone knows that today’s unusual weather is attributed to the current El Nino and not to human CO2 emissions.
After “normal” weather comes “post-normal” weather. An engineering colleague refers to “post-normal” as “post-moral”.
And I am taken at how Kevin Trenberth looks like John Cleese in one of his more manic, self-righteous modes (“don’t mention the war”).
The question is: “Will our weather be greater than the old normal, or less?”
It is odd that now that we have see nearly twenty years of no global warming even as CO2 levels went way up, we see the crazies talking about “no normal weather any more”. Odd indeed.
In the US at least we live in a time where most “extreme weather” is down compared to historical values. We are in a 10 year “hurricane drought” here in Florida for example. Could it be that the alarmists are getting desperate now that even they see that the warming period is over?
CO2 controls the weather….withoout changing the temperature
The sad thing is that a certain percentage of the public actually believe this BS.
They should put the goalposts on wheels, easier to move that way.
FTOP
In Exeter, where the Met. Office lives, they have whole herds of free-range goal posts.
Watching them galloping across the fund-scape on a moonlit summer evening is one of life’s richest [free] pleasures!
Auto – just a bit /sarc, Mods, just a bit; there are only a dozen or so still free-range goal posts
“In Exeter, where the Met. Office lives, they have whole herds of free-range goal posts.
Watching them galloping across the fund-scape on a moonlit summer evening is one of life’s richest [free] pleasures!”
Auto! I love that! Can I use it? ROFL
Aphan,
Sure – use it whenever you like!
Auto
I’m still kind of lost in the word picture you created…of goal posts….their long sleek silhouettes striding “Nobel-ly” across the “fund-ra”….wild and free….sigh. Then I get overcome with the dark shadows creeping onto the “field”…with ropes in one hand, and hot “branding” irons in the other…ready to pounce on those beautiful creatures and mark them as their own! (So they can then move them to anywhere they want them to be in the future)….sigh…
Aphan – I hadn’t considered that downside – the branding, the coralling . . .
In my vision, we have sight to the horizon, without any ‘dark shadows’ . . .
Possibly rejected parts of ‘Fellowship of the Ring’
Auto
So, the goal posts will be captured and sold to the highest bidder? or just someone who needs a young dappled goal post. Do they come in children’s pony sizes?
“Here in Oxford we maintain the world’s longest daily weather record, we just beat the previous record by a whopping two and a half degrees and that record was set back in 1852.”
==========
I’m not sure what is worse, the hubris that we have any effect on the weather, or the fallacy that we can predict it.
If weather were random we’d have expected the 1852 record to have been broken well before 2015. If there was a significant anthropogenic warming trend then we’d have expected the 1852 record to have been broken before random weather. Since it didn’t I can only assume that it’s a statistical fluke way ouside of any spece where a reasonable causation can be assigned.
space not spece
“A statistical fluke”… like a butcher’s thumb on the scale.
That’s a whale of a “fluke”. Jeez, I gotta stop watching foot ball and go trek in the snow to get my mind back to its normal solid state 😉
Statistics cannot determine causation. All statistics do is highlight the degree to which things are correlated, or not correlated.
It is absolutely believable that the 2015 temperature increase was genuinely recorded at the Radcliffe Observatory.
see https://suddenoaklifeorg.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/global-warming-in-oxford/
“Wetter and warmer winters now more likely.” Remember that one, folks, it will come back to bite them on the b u m.
And which cheek will it bite them on? The Labor cheek? Or the Conservative cheek?
Hi Jorge – whichever cheek that claims wetter and warmer winters, I’d say. That could be both of them of course, the world over many of these left/right parties seem indistinguishable. At least with this claim Myles Allen didn’t actually come out with “snow will be a thing of the past” – perhaps he wasn’t game, or maybe he’s thinking we’ll get wetter and warmer snow. Whatever, you can bet it won’t be “normal”.
It already has once. They’ve been peddling this ‘milder wetter’ schtick for a long time. The severe winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 forced them to shut up about it. Now, with one mild winter, they’ve wheeled it out again.
It’s the “warmer” part that makes me laugh, Charlie, especially since some of their ilk are already pushing the other way with CAGW climate change weirding (etc.) causing snow and ice and colder weather. They can’t have warming and cooling as a result at the same time… Oh wait. Of course they can, they’re a special breed of “scientists” and everything fits the meme. Nevertheless it should be fun to watch.
If the warmista track record for sweeping predictions holds ( Oz reservoirs will never fill again, Texas in a permanent drought, Britain’s end of snow, etc.), England has now seen the last warm and wet winter for a very long time.
And, we have no drought anywhere in Texas right now… Not forecast to return until at least March, 2016.
Here in Holland we could iceskate to work just as 30-40 years ago. When you look at temperatures in Holland for winter 1974/1975 you’ll see the same as for this winter. So, what is that change people talk about?
I heard this at the time on the Today programme.
Prof Myles Allen gave the analogy of throwing dice over and over again. He said if the rolls kept going up then that shows something strange is going in.
This assumed that the weather one day is completely independent of the weather the day before – like dice rolls.
Which is bunkum, of course.
So does Prof Myles Allen:
A) Completely misunderstand statistics?
B) Completely misunderstand the climate?
C) Want to mislead?
None of the above. It has to do with seeking the limelight.
It has everything to do with the dice. Obviously, someone has messed with the dice! Happens all the time.
M
All three. Obviously.
Auto
“Oxford University’s Professor Myles Allen said we have ‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely.”
-Telegraph
========
15 months ago in the same newspaper:
=======
Cold winters have been caused by global warming: new research
Climate sceptics often claim that recent icy winters show that global warming is not happening. New research suggests the opposite is true
[…]
So maybe sceptics should start arguing that it is milder winters, not colder ones, that refute global warming after all. [!]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/11191520/Cold-winters-have-been-caused-by-global-warming-say-scientists.html
=======
“Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them…” – 1984
” to hold simultaneously two opinions”.
Come on, get modern, that’s quantum thinking.
Myles Allen follows the money so he is not interested in science only more methods to obtain state funding.
Remember his claim from CimatePrediction.net?
Nearly 100,000 people worldwide have taken part in the largest ever climate study and shown that global warming could be more extreme than previously thought — temperatures could rise by 2-11 degrees Celsius if carbon dioxide emissions go unchecked. – See more at: http://www.scidev.net/global/networks/news/temperature-could-rise-by-11-degrees-says-study.html#sthash.NpByrweb.dpuf
Of course that was before they found their models were buggy!
Dune buggies, no less!
I’d be inclined to think that if you live in the UK there is no such thing as ‘normal’ weather. Going way back, January 1984 produced so much snow that roads in the west highlands of Scotland were blocked for several days and the government had to import snow blowers to get them cleared. By contrast there was virtually no snow even on high ground the following January and the Scottish ski centres hardly operated that winter. The alarmists were predicting an end to the Scottish ski industry by the 2000’s, but the supposedly mild winter of 2014 dumped more snow on the Scottish mountains than anyone could remember and the main problem the ski industry had was digging out buried ski tows. January 2015 produced so much snow at the Glen Coe ski centre that not only was it possible to ski the whole length of the access charlift down to the car park at 1000 feet above sea level, but they’d actually groomed two runs to the car park which was unheard of.
At the start of April 2012, the alarmists were predicting that the year-long drought in the south-east of England would become the new normal. Reservoirs were depleted, river levels were low and catastrophe was just round the corner. I worked in East Anglia from late April to June of 2012, and it didn’t stop raining. By summer 2012 everything was back to normal and the predictions of gloom were quietly forgotten.
I should have saved the links to the numerous press articles in the autumn (fall) of 2014 which predicted a bitterly cold, snowy winter in the UK, which so far has failed to materialise. These included UK Met Office long range forecasts.
The fact is that the UK doesn’t have ‘normal’ weather and the UKMO still cannot forecast with any degree of accuracy more than 48 hours in the future. I’m getting fed up with the endless predictions of doom which make big headlines, but are quietly forgotten about when they fail to materialise.
Should have read “…I should have saved the links to the numerous press articles in the autumn (fall) of 2015 which predicted a bitterly cold, snowy winter in the UK…”
In early 1947 I was off school for 6 weeks because we were snowed in.
9 Jan: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Met Office’s ‘wettest ever’ claim fails again
Official records show that December ranked as only the 20th wettest since 1766, despite what we’ve been told
But as soon as the Met Office rushed to proclaim that 230mm of rain (9in) had made it “the wettest December on record” (and the “wettest calendar month”) – predictably echoed by the BBC and the Prime Minister – we knew it might be wise to examine the small print behind its claims.
We know how eager these people are to seize on any “extreme weather event” as a sign of unprecedented “climate change”, as they did when the Met Office trumpeted on July 1 that it had been “the hottest July day evah”, solely on the basis, it turned out, of a fleeting temperature spike probably caused by an airliner passing its temperature gauge near a runway at Heathrow…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/12091298/Met-Offices-wettest-ever-claim-fails-again.html
“Professor Myles Allen: Normal Weather is a “Thing of the Past””
Professor Allen, I’ll leave you with the immortal words of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, renowned journalist and philosopher, who said:
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Rock on Professor, your time has come.
“IPCC Lead Author Professor Myles Allen, who just last year in 2014 stated that alarmism is unhelpful, appears to have changed his mind – his new position is that “normal weather is now a thing of the past”.
Hmmmmmmm…. Could someone please tell me what “normal weather” is? I’d really like to know….
Is “normal” weather 0.85C colder as it was in the 1850’s following the LITTLE ICE AGE, or is it 2C warmer as it was during the Medeival Warming Period, or is “normal” weather 4C warmer than it was 8,000 years ago during the Holocene Maxium?
CAGW alarmists would like us to believe14.5C is the average magical-mystical Goldilock’s “normal” temperature that man can maintain, providing Western countries commit economic suicide stop using cheap, abundant, beneficial, safe and clean fossil fuels (even though China, India and Russia have refused to take part in this CAGW suicide pact)….
Too bad for the CAGW alarmists that the global warming trend has flatlined for 20 years, despite 30% of all manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 being made over just the last 20 years…
Lewis Carroll’s Through the Hockey Stickhas the answer you require.
‘I don’t know what you mean by “normal”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “normal” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
youtube= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woA_SfURbt0
Camelot
[Spaces added around web address. .mod]
Sorry about that.
Being a denier, I am not allowed to refer to “weather” when discussing climate change, so I am unable to comment on the Prof’s article…
It has been very wet this year and perhaps the Professor is a dog walker. It is getting harder and harder to find mud free dog walks so I would quite understand if he was feeling the strain and becoming bejangled in the brains. I know I am. It won’t last.
If we dredge our British rivers this year, we have to keep the spoil moving. If it stops moving we incur the EU landfill tax.
If we wait until after the up and coming EU referendum, we can dredge and let the spoil pile up on the bank to be moved at a more convenient time. No tax at all.
It’s the Red Queen solution: Normal is whatever I say it is.
Ah! Charlie! Simultaneous thoughts – is it normal?
thank goodness normal weather is a thing of the past –
Outlook 2016: Bumper crops set to keep grain prices down …
http://www.fwi.co.uk/…/outlook-2016-bumper-crops-set-to-keep-grain-prices-...
31 Dec 2015 – The market has spent the past few seasons being only one crop away from a problem, but the bumper yields of 2015 mean that buffer is now …
2013, the 4th-warmest year on record (according to NOAA), brought a record grain harvest. 2014 was even hotter (NOAA) and the word wide grain harvest even better (International Grain Council). 2015 was likely to be the most-hottest year ever (WMO) and climate-change took its toll: The amount of grain harvested shrunk and and the year was a dismal second best ever.
Where, oh where, shall that lead us?
“Oxford University’s Professor Myles Allen said we have ‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely”
Global warming has doubled risk of harsh winters in Eurasia …
http://www.theguardian.com › Environment › Climate change
Global warming ‘will make our winters colder’ | Climate …
http://www.independent.co.uk › Environment › Climate Change
27 Oct 2014 – Britain can expect twice as many severe winters as usual over the … idea that global warming could lead to colder weather in some parts of the …
You visited this page on 05/01/16.
Is global warming causing COLDER winters? – Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Is-global-warming-causing-COLDER-winters-M...
Britain faces FREEZING winters as slump in solar activity …
http://www.express.co.uk › News › Nature
Gulf Stream: Global warming weakening UK climate system …
http://www.express.co.uk › News › Nature
24 Mar 2015 – GLOBAL warning is weakening the UK climate system and may result in COLDER winters across Europe, according to a new study.
Normal refers to the lack of significant deviation from the average. So what are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Standard deviations for weather?
Regards
Climate Heretic
1st deviation: fine and sunny.
2nd deviation: cloudy and windy.
3rd deviation: rain.
The scientific way to say this is, I think, “there is a new norm for the weather” or “the weather has changed” because ‘normal’ is the prevailing conditions at any time.
The former is not nearly alarming enough for popular consumption.
The latter is refutable.
The wording is pure propaganda, saying nothing substantial and intended to cause alarm.
Us denialists need the equivalent of a Lew to take apart the semantic jiggery pokery that is going on.
I was born in Sydney in 1949. After the big wet of 1950 and then the NSW deluge of ’56, the weather was definitely no longer normal according to 1930s-raised adults (the continent’s driest known decade). Apparently it was the H-bomb and Sptutnik what did it.
It’s true that we don’t live in our grandparents’ climate. What they don’t tell you is that our grandparents didn’t live in their grandparents’ climate.
Methinks Prof Myles Allen is a Post Science Modernist, as many other academics appear to be, where words mean just what they choose them to mean — neither more nor less, so they can never be proved wrong. (apologies to Lewis Carroll 😉 )
Since words are merely symbols that are used to communicate among people isn’t it odd that folks of Allen’s ilk use words to mean only what they want them to mean? Doesn’t that mean that Allen’s words aren’t, in fact, meaningless?
Very true. While words are malleable to a degree and may have multiple meanings, they are all clearly and precisely described in the dictionary. We have enough words in our language that have changed dramatically just in my lifetime.
What we write today will be incomprehensible to readers 500 years from now. And what Prof Myles Allen writes now is already incomprehensible (and more than silly).
I checked our UK weather the last time the Met Office got worried and used control charts, perhaps not the best statistical tool, however it does suggest our weather isn’t that different to how it’s always been. See my wordpress site. I’ve just watched a programmme on TV about our 2015 weather with people saying they’ve never seen anything like it. In my 69 years I’ve seen a lot like it and a lot more. Memories are not very reliable. Paul busts some of the Met office myths quite often, see his latest, Met Office’s ‘wettest ever’ claim fails again
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/
thanks for your site
The weather station in Oxford which recorded this spike in temperature for “one day” is presumably this one at the Oxford School of Georgraphy and the Environment (which is where Myles Allen works). It’s poorly sited and has been famously photographed with a marqee heater close to it.
https://suddenoaklifeorg.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/global-warming-in-oxford/
Obvious follow-up question, what is “normal” weather? Please define “normal” weather, and identify time periods and locations where this “normal” weather occurred. The fact that these people call themselves “scientists” is astounding, and the world will pay a huge price for following these false
profits“scientists.Climatism is now part of post-truth discourse, part of the decline of objective realism.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/post-truth-climatism/
Alas, poor Normal Weather. May ye rest in peace. I remember the days, back before the internets, and before teevee stations discovered weather could be lucrative, before every single zephyr and raindrop from the far sides of the planet were breathlessly and excitedly reported on, before every storm was given a name and a personality, like rock stars. Whippersnappers wouldn’t remember, but there was a time when millionaires didn’t build mansions in places prone to effects from wind and water, then complained about getting their feet wet and submerging the croquet court. People were heartier then, more stout and sturdy. If it rained, they simply wore their raincoats and Wellies (a type of boot, I hear). They didn’t moan and groan and cry about how awful it was, and that “this has never happened before”. You see, back then, they read things called “books”, and actually talked to people, strange as that sounds, especially older folks who would remember that yes, little ones, bad, or unusual weather has happened before. In fact, it was to be expected.
But this is a brave new world. Weather is Big, and now that Ma Nature has refused to oblige the Climate wankers by not warming for over 18 years, they have simply latched onto Weather, hoping people won’t notice.
So I guess our grandkids won’t know what ‘normal’ weather is?
Oops, I got a bit carried away and used a British slang word which was bad (didn’t think it was that bad, though). Sorry mods. Hope it can still go through.
An easily refuted claim. Ask Myles Allen to define “normal weather.” He has a limited number of possible responses as follows:
1) Provide a very generalized definition that fits just about everything. At which point he can’t point to any current weather that isn’t “normal.”
2) Provide a very specific definition that fits a very small subset of the current weather. Thus proving him wrong in his claim because “normal weather” does continue to exist.
3) Provide a non-answer (i.e. gibberish).
4) Ignore the request for his definition of “normal weather” and continue in his efforts for funding.
I’ll say number 4 is the most likely.
Prof Allen: “‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely.”
Julia Slingo (UKMO): “I’m going to take a pass on this, Myles! The last time we bet on this horse -you remember ‘children won’t know what snow is’ and followed by ‘BBQ summers’ we had five of the coldest winters since the LIA followed by summer rain, rain and then more rain. Then we finally switched over to a prediction of bitter cold winters and got warm wet weather instead. As you now know, we don’t do predictions anymore. We just study ways to change the data to be what we want it to be.”
+10
Professor Allen has just demonstrated why AGW is actually “Anthropomorphic”, not “Anthropogenic”.
“Anthropomorphic” is a human trait such as when people see dragons in the clouds, the face of a mighty god on the side of a mountain, see ominous patterns in the entrails of an animal, and other things that border on or cross over into the irrational and superstitious.
That Prof. Allen is clearly caving in to peer pressure (at best) is rather pathetic on his part.
The concept of “normal weather” is, like that of “climate change”: nearly completely subjective and flexible in that it can mean whatever one wants.
Slight correction if I may, to an otherwise astute comment-
Anthropogenic=something caused by humans, originating from
Anthropomorphic=assigning HUMAN qualities to things that are not human themselves
So, I’d have to view the clouds, the mountain, the animal entrails etc in a way in which I gave them HUMAN characteristics, not the characteristics of a dragon, God, or ominous patterns.
Does that make sense?
The author Robert A. Heinlein once wrote, “Climate is what you expect – weather is what you get.”
Summers are warm. How warm? Historically, it wiggles a lot year-to-year…and it’s called “weather”.
Winters are cold. How cold? Historically, it wiggles a lot year-to-year … and it’s called “weather”.
“The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.” – GC
I might steal that one 🙂
What if I prefer my people abnormal?
Join the club Aphan. I enjoy the company of people with a bit of character; some might prefer the term eccentric, (or abnormal)!
I feel so sorry for this Prof Allen .
He observes that there is something abnormal or at least different about the current weather and the way weather systems work , but instead of looking for some new and unsuspected mechanism (to which , if correct, he could attach his name , think “Roosby waves” , “Van Allen belts” , “Heaviside layers” for example) he runs for protection to the rest of the scientific herd and peers fearfully out at the exciting, amazing , complicated world around him.
My working life was with chemists and materials scientists , for whom novelty , innovation , the opportunity to do something no one else had ever thought of or made was the very breath of life .
Climateers seem to be made differently , always huddling in a safe consensus.
Sad.
There is so much to be explored and they are the ones with the funding and the toys with which to do it.
”
mikewaite
January 10, 2016 at 6:29 am
I feel so sorry for this Prof Allen .
He observes that there is something abnormal or at least different about the current weather…
“
Well, except we don’t have proof that the weather anywhere isn’t the same as it has been there before, meaning to suggest it is abnormal is difficult to determine. Whether the weather is “different” or not is easy: just hang around somewhere, and when the weather isn’t the way it was when you first got there, proclaim it is “different”! You may get a near 100% certainty on that.
/grin
What a prize ignorant mountebank. If you were interested in going to a top University in order to get a quality education – not to become part of an elite set – and read a statement like that from a supposed professor you would think again. You would think ‘oh great, I’m going to get a thorough left wing indoctrination and wherever science or history or whatever gets it the way of that, out of the window it goes. You’d be better off at your local madrassa.
“IPCC Lead Author Professor Myles Allen,…”
Wait, is he “A” lead author or “THE” lead author?
Either way, it would not be, uh, normal to follow his lead, IMHO.
I wonder if we have a list somewhere of these absurd statements?
“Climate Change is happening now.”
“Normal weather is a thing of the past.”
“Global Warming is happening world-wide.”
Etc., etc., etc.
He wouldn’t be looking for more public money would he?
Is the bear Catholic?
He wouldn’t be chasing more grant money by any chance?
Does the Pope poop in the woods?
Not if there’s a protestant bear nearby.
If you really want to go “normal” we need to get out of the this interglacial and back into the glaciated Earth.
Yes, that is exactly what these crazy people are doing: trying to force another Ice Age instead of desperately extending this short Interglacial.
Prof Allen said “What we’re doing is loading the dice if you like, or like an athlete popping pills, we’re changing the odds. And we’re seeing the odds on these extreme warm, extreme wet winters increasing. ”
Its a pity Prof Allen does not appear to read the material that the MET office issue.
“Annual mean precipitation over England and Wales has not changed
significantly since records began in 1766.”
Page 12
http://ukclimateprojections.metoffice.gov.uk/media.jsp?mediaid=87932&
The quote continues
. …..”Seasonal rainfall is highly variable,
but appears to have decreased in summer and increased in winter, although
with little change in the latter over the last 50 years. ”
‘Although little change in the last 50 years’ refers to the winter period.
This publication directly contradicts Prof Allen
Bruce Cobb climate wan**rs ha ha – I don’t think its any worse than denier.
Myles Allen was also the guy that predicted 11 deg C warming.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=70
Of course he was heavily criticised for that. Then he decided alarmism wasn’t helpful, and now decides normal is now a thing of the past.
Is this what is called the “scatter gun” approach?
He’s certainly shooting wide on every shot, which is pretty funny.
“Professor Myles Allen, leader of the Climate Research Programme at the University of Oxford’
That someone could hold such a position and have such a short-sighted and unscientific understanding of the ebb and flow and boundaries of the chaos of weather speaks volumes. This statement ought to come from someone with no education and certainly no knowledge of weather or weather history. It further demonstrates a total ignorance of statistics that ought to shame anyone who calls themselves a professor of climate.
Pathetic.
Yet more egregious ‘projection’ from climate alarmists. They’re really quite shameless; just a wall of BS propaganda. Shame about Miles because he comes across as ok, yet he’s no different to all the other liars and exaggerators. Hey ho.
Allen’s statement on the IPCC is materially wrong. They are purposely biased to create findings of dangerous AGW. That is alarmism worse than any random NGO’s; it enables NGOs.
NOTE: Donna Laframboise is a good source on the IPCC memes for alarm.
John
Yes, good ol’ normal weather, like the Johnstown flood of 1887 and the dust bowls of the 1930’s really has been missing lately… and how about that year without a summer back in 1816?
Normal weather is a thing of the past? So is snow which we had yet another rare and exciting event. Ironically, no one flew in to see it, except in the high country where people are going skiing. If anything, there has been a net migration of the well heeled looking for warmer climes. I’m still waiting for my status as a climate refugee from the cold. Think of the benefits of the UN relocating me. I wouldn’t be burning that evil fossil fuel to, well, keep warm.
Follow the Builderburg gang
. . .
These dudes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
Todays news flash.
Severely normal weather.
News at 11.
The hype and hysteria on the Canadian Weather Channel and the North American News Channels, is amusing.
Rain Event? Are tickets available?
Named storms, with a name given to every blip on the radar.
Hurricanes that are only seen on radar and satellite given breathless coverage.
This kind of propaganda works short term but defeats itself long term.
Extreme Weather?
Windbags!
Storm..
So much shorter and concise.
I wonder who still buys the Catastrophic Climatisms?
People who have never left their climate controlled abodes in the inner city?
The same people who would take a selfie with honey and a wild bear?
There has been a definite deterioration of civic standards involved in the urbanization of western society.
Has any one measured the cost of civic insanity?
Or is decline of civilization a natural consequence of building Babble On?
‘Normal’
For some time now weather presenters in the media have been using this vague and meaningless word.
They report that the forecasted temperature will be x degrees above or below normal when they actually mean above or below average.
The intent is clear; if the temperature is above or below normal then the weather must therefore be abnormal and potentially scary.
“They keep using this word. I do not think it means what they think it means…”
When did we ever have ‘normal’ weather?
If the weather was predictable, he wouldn’t have a JOB!!! Oh the irony!
Then again, Prof. Allen might have first checked with the weather bureau for this weeks forecast.
Foot meet mouth
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/633273/Snow-weather-uk-severe-alert-forecast-south-snowbomb
michael
‘Snowbomb’? Oh, for goodness’ sake! I suppose it’s aimed at TV ‘reality’ show audiences and the like.
I find it strange and amusing that when we have what is considered ‘normal’ weather, usually meaning no rain and comfortable temps so we are not inconvenienced, this is not also caused by CO2.
IPCC Lead Author Professor Myles Allen should be called “Goldilocks”.
Normal weather is neither too hot or too cold, neither too windy or too still, neither too wet or too dry. Weather should be “just right” and if it’s not, it’s climate change at work, and it’s somebody’s fault.
Are you blaming bears now for the weather? 🙂
There are about 270 major river basins in the world and one has a one in 1000 year flood every 4 years on average. With data for many not even being available for the past 100 years, the unprecedented floods might be really 10th on the list eg. The Murray had its biggest flood in 1956 but research suggests that there was a flood with 4 times the water a few years before European settlement.
By definition, ‘normal’ is the past pattern of events. Doh.
An Anthropologicless Globalist Warning.
Average is a mathematical concept–nothing more and nothing less. Very few things in nature are “average”.
“Normal” weather a thing of the past? Has the good (?) professor never heard a saying that is popular in one variation or another practically the whole world ’round, “Don’t like the weather? Wait 15 minutes, it’ll change!”
Both weather and climate change all the time, slowly or quickly…most of us understand that “normal” weather only occurs a few days or at most a few weeks at a time. Then comes something that’s not “normal”…
In my opinion, it’s difficult to make an association between “normal” and “weather”. I just know that global warming may lead to global cooling, as shown here – http://oceansgovernclimate.com/climate-science-is-master-in-hiding-abrupt-cooling/ – and that many scientists and governments don’t seem to care too much about that and hiding that…..
Normal weather is “anything goes” 😉
that’s normal Mendelian inheritance.
Regards – Hans
meant to
MareeS on January 10,
2016 at 5:06 am
Hans